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Well, then science needs to do more to create an environment where software engineers would want to be an RSE. From my experience "science" does not appreciate

Well, then science needs to do more to create an environment where software engineers would want to be an RSE. From my experience "science" does not appreciate RSEs, the compensation is bad, the freedom is bad, and you get all of the big company bureaucracy from the University. It's just a bad environment and to top it off, even if you have a PhD many will see you as "less than."

cameldrv 4y ago
IME that's all true. To say that they need to do more to create a more positive environment for research engineers though depends on the perspective. From the perspective of the university and the PI, they can just get a graduate student to do the work for 1/5 the cost.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > From the perspective of the university and the PI, they can just get a graduate student to do the work for 1/5 the cost. That is what they do. However, some projects grow in scale where a grad student cannot handle it well, or if they try, it will be a detriment to their research. To give you an example, only one of the PhD students (non-CS engineering) in my group and the ones around me had taken data structures or algorithms - yet everyone's thesis was "computational" (i.e. numerical computation, etc). None of the advisors would appreciate their students going off and taking serious CS courses. When a research team wants to go to the next level, they need to hire someone with better SW skills.
de6u99er 4y ago
Apart from compensation and freedom you also get micro managed by someone who might know about the science part, but is really bad on the software architecture and engineering part.
mywaifuismeta 4y ago
The last point is important. In my experience it's mostly about status. RSEs are always seen as inferior to researchers (research scientists) who supposedly come up with the "big ideas" while RSEs merely implement the stuff they're told to do. In reality the line is much blurrier. There can be no innovation and iteration without implementation of ideas and the RSE work is just as important. But unless this view changes, nobody wants to be an RSE.
- JetAlone 4y ago
  According to a quick search for the case of researchers, and the stereotype of most staff in academia across the board being underpaid, this means academic researchers would have even less incentives/perks/reward, because now they have one less beneficial status differential. Is there some way to make human respect feel like it's not a zero sum game? The world may never know.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    > Is there some way to make human respect feel like it's not a zero sum game? Respect is non zero sum but status is definitionally a positional good. If you’re number 1 someone else isn’t. There can be uncertainty about status but ambiguity always collapses eventually. Everyone can be treated with respect but there will be a prestige or dominance hierarchy in any group of humans, subtle as it may be.
- amelius 4y ago
  Yes, I think RSE is often viewed as a laboratory assistant.
  - auxym 4y ago
    Not just viewed, but literally called an assistant in the official title. I am a licensed professional engineer (mechanical) and I work in academia (though my work is varied and does involve some code), my official title (in french) is "Professionnel de recherche", which translates to Research Professional. It is my understanding that in most of the english-speaking world, this position (someone that works for a research lab, who is qualified above the technician level, but not a PI nor a postdoc or student) is called "Research Assistant". I write "Research Engineer" on my résumé/linkedin, because TBH for most people who don't have much experience in academia, "Research Assistant" sounds like an admin assistant (secretary).
- lliamander 4y ago
  I actually wouldn't mind being lower status than the scientists, so long as my particular expertise was respected and I had a reasonable degree of autonomy within my domain. I did tech support at a university for a bit. I certainly wasn't as high status as the professors, but they mostly respected me and the value I provided (especially when you do things like help them recover that next book they were working on, or whatever).
tonto 4y ago
your premise is that it's not being sold right but maybe you just need more people to give their perspective. I might be considered a research software engineer in the US. In my job, I get paid (well) to develop open source software for data visualization, and I work remotely. I get to maintain existing tools and develop new ones. there is an interesting global community that asks questions daily, and I am constantly learning. I'm not working under the thumb of overbearing people, just delivering results and contributing to new grant goals to continue the funding. these positions are not necessarily common, but are interesting and cool.
- FlyingRobot 4y ago
  I'll offer another positive perspective. I've worked as a software engineer within the Department of Energy's National Laboratory System for 15 years, and I really enjoy it. Software is a major element of much of the laboratory's work, and in some cases such as mine software is the main product. We enjoy autonomy, lead projects as PIs, and develop mostly open source software. We are also hiring https://nrel.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/NREL/2/refreshFacet/318c8bb6f553100021d223d9780d30be https://nrel.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/NREL/2/refreshFacet/318c8....
  - artwr 4y ago
    I will second this. The national labs are definitely some of the places who know what to do with research software engineers and treat them right for the most part. The Computer Systems Engineers and Software Engineers I had the chance to meet at LBNL had a decent amount of autonomy and were very good.
  - tsj5 4y ago
    Hi FlyingRobot --- I'd be interested in hearing more about your career path (and openings at NREL). What I've personally heard and experienced aligns with the overwhelmingly negative accounts elsewhere in the thread, which (I feel) have also correctly identified the misalignment of incentives that's responsible. On the other hand, I've never worked in the national lab system. If you're still monitoring this thread, I'd appreciate it if you contacted me at the email in my profile!
ehnto 4y ago
Absolutely, but I will give them the hand that achieving a good software dev experience is extremely hard inside a uni. There is a number of ways that they need to match the industry and are having a tough time doing so due to the institutionalization of all the adjacent processes.
travisgriggs 4y ago
This last point, and replies to this all seem to talk about the research industry. But it has been my experience that this same dynamic of being “less than” exists in any industry that is not primarily software. I am a mechanical engineer by degree, but a software engineer by 30 years of practice. That has allowed me to thrice straddle the divide where I worked on software that was not just software for softwares sake, but rather as a value add addendum/enablement to an institution whose roots were in more real-worldly devices. I also spent time on the other side of the divide working twice for companies whose primary product was software. This “less than” is a very real thing. Software is still a very new thing relatively and it’s taken over the world in just 30 years time. The power dynamics, entrenched in generations haven’t had time to rebalance. I’ve seen this run the other way as well. Where companies that are primarily software, look down on the other disciplines that participate, a necessary evil, but resented. I have yet to find a company/institution where the trifecta of mechanical, electrical, and software is balanced in mutual respect. If one such exists and you are looking for someone that would love to work in that environment, drop me a line. I’m skeptical that there are any. It seems one discipline or the other always triumphs and tramples the others down. On off axis variant of Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy .
- NoahKAndrews 4y ago
  I sent you an email too, but my employer REV Robotics definitely fits this description in my opinion, especially in regards to the software team's collaboration with the electrical team.
- rytill 4y ago
  Just curious, have you sampled many robotics companies? I have worked with dozens and it seems like there are some with well-balanced power dynamics between mechanical-electrical-software.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- fburnaby 4y ago
  I believe this has less to do with software in particular and just generally reflects the typical dynamics of the line/staff distinction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_and_line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_and_line
ElevenPhonons 4y ago
That was my experience as well. The RSE role doesn't seem to fit into their current model. It doesn't work from a career path, nor from a competitive compensation standpoint. I suspect that the housing crisis is also going to push more people out of these positions. If you have a PhD in material science, physics, chemistry, biology, etc... and are reasonably knowledgable in Python (or similar), perhaps spend a year as a postdoc. After that year, seriously consider moving to a tech company.
epicureanideal 4y ago
If RSEs are actually valuable but under-compensated, can someone please disrupt this industry? Would love to see more startup medicine development companies ... Alternatively, would it make sense to provide RSE services as a company, for very high hourly rates, separately from the rest of the university, so status and rules are less of a problem?
- kyawzazaw 4y ago
  There are a few like these: 1. Benchling 2. Enable Medicine 3. Radix.bio
- mike_hearn 4y ago
  The reason they're under-compensated is that they aren't valued, unfortunately. A lot of scientists are self taught programmers and don't know what they don't know. The other issue is that if you say you should spend half your departments budget on hiring much better paid software developers, it looks really bad: a. You're implying your colleagues are incompetent. b. You can't use that money for "science". c. It puts in painful relief that the software guys are much better paid than you are, implying that their work is more valuable than yours. But a lot of scientists put up with low pay because they believe their work is really valuable.
Azrael3000 4y ago
There is simply no incentive for science to do proper software engineering. It does not directly produce papers or money, so nobody does it. I've seen it several times in my own career in several countries. PhDs having their own version of the code, incompatible with the one of the Postdoc sitting opposite of them. Each slaving away at their niche project but nobody there to bring it all together. This particular university had really great code and they thought they could sell it. But they did not even use git and when I gave a presentation there about it, I was met with absolute rejection. They don't have an idea on how much effort it takes to maintain a commercial code, unit tests, customer support etc. I'm now working at a company that produces simulation software spun out from university. Fantastic job and we do all of those things mentioned above. But obviously my paper output has been near zero even though we sometimes do cutting edge research. I wish I had a solution to the problem as so much grant money is wasted that produces a paper or two and the corresponding software for that just goes to digital nirvana, it's a real shame.
- w0de0 4y ago
  Is there any solution to be found through analogy with established fields' relationship between engineering and research disciplines? How, for instance, do physicists share formal models which rocket engineers might apply? Certainly the physicists aren't out developing unit tests for engines which apply their theory, but nor are the engineers exasperated by physicists rejecting their standardized tools (I imagine?).
  - Azrael3000 4y ago
    Well from experience the interface is conferences and papers. On conferences you get to know the latest stuff that is going on and the implementation details can be found in papers. What needs to be said though is that reimplementing something from a paper is near impossible. I had to do that a couple of times and I was only fully successful if the paper was accompanied by some open source code as there always are tiny little edge cases or initialization details that won't be covered in the paper.
- joshvm 4y ago
kimixa 4y ago
I certainly agree - it was about 10 years ago now, but I did a physics degree and ended up pivoting to computer science. I offered to help a couple of friends in the department with their analysis, and ended up writing the majority of their code in actually analysing their experimental results. In both cases, their supervisor decided not to put my name in the resulting papers, and treated me less than a lab tech. Why would anyone want to do that, when a six-figure tech company salary is just next door?
jltsiren 4y ago
While the academia has a lot of issues, software engineers should also adjust their expectations. First, if you choose to work for a non-profit, you should expect a huge pay cut. That's the way the society works. Or actually it's the opposite. If you work in a for-profit role, the society allows your employer to keep most of the value you create. If you create a lot of value, that gives you the leverage to negotiate much higher compensation than your peers in less profitable roles. Second, like in any business, you should focus on what brings the money in if you want to advance your career. You should be the PI instead of the lab technician. Instead of building the software other people ask, you should become an expert in the field and build the software other people will need in the future. For example, bioinformatics as a whole used to be more of a support role, but today there are many high-profile bioinformatics PIs. Third, many people in the industry fail to realize that you don't really work for your employer in the academia. You work to build a reputation for yourself, which makes you valuable to the employer. If you want to continue working for other people, the upward career path from support roles goes to the administration.
- lliamander 4y ago
  > Third, many people in the industry fail to realize that you don't really work for your employer in the academia. You work to build a reputation for yourself, which makes you valuable to the employer. That feels like how it works outside of academia as well.
  - jltsiren 4y ago
    There is a huge difference: Universities don't do reseach, and they don't care about the research their employees do. If you switch jobs, your old employer doesn't hire anyone to continue your research. Instead, you usually take your project to your new job. In the industry, your employer tends to own the projects you work on.
- arvinsim 4y ago
  My apologies for not being familiar with acronyms, but what is a PI?
maxwell86 4y ago
> even if you have a PhD many will see you as "less than." Inside academia and outside of it. Inside academia you are not on a tenure track or similar, and will have to put up with a lot. Outside academia, your peers will be making 3x or more than you, working less hours, with less stress, etc. The reason RSE's jobs are hard to fill and often aren't even opened is that they don't make sense. If you are good enough for an RSE job, you will be good enough for research postions at FAANG. Those pay 10x more, so you also need someone willing to not accept that 10x pay, and also willing to work double the hours. RSEs making a reasonable pay for the skills they require make no sense either, because that would put your pay at 2x that of professors, etc.
- robbomacrae 4y ago
  I'm curious which company pays a RS 10x more than a SE/RSE. I've found its usually SE/RSE's that make a bit more than RS's but I've never seen an RSE comp significantly outweigh an SE unless its in ML/Crypto. On that note I wish levels.fyi had RS and RSE roles...
  - epgui 4y ago
    10x is possible, but maybe 3-5x is more realistic (even for non-FAANG).
  - adw 4y ago
    10x more than academia. I’m a PhD in mineral physics turned Big Four MLE via startups and I earn about 10x what I would be on if I had stayed on the academic track.
  - exdsq 4y ago
    This isn't totally crazy but it's only if you stretch the facts enough. An RSE at Oxford will earn 32k GBP, like a postdoc. In theory, that person could be so good they could get the highest starting salary possible at a Tier 1 paying company like a research engineer at Hudson River Trading, which can be > 320k TC. So it's possible but only for a very very small number of people. 3x-5x is much more likely.

cameldrv 4y ago

IME that's all true. To say that they need to do more to create a more positive environment for research engineers though depends on the perspective. From the perspective of the university and the PI, they can just get a graduate student to do the work for 1/5 the cost.

BeetleB 4y ago
> From the perspective of the university and the PI, they can just get a graduate student to do the work for 1/5 the cost. That is what they do. However, some projects grow in scale where a grad student cannot handle it well, or if they try, it will be a detriment to their research. To give you an example, only one of the PhD students (non-CS engineering) in my group and the ones around me had taken data structures or algorithms - yet everyone's thesis was "computational" (i.e. numerical computation, etc). None of the advisors would appreciate their students going off and taking serious CS courses. When a research team wants to go to the next level, they need to hire someone with better SW skills.

de6u99er 4y ago

Apart from compensation and freedom you also get micro managed by someone who might know about the science part, but is really bad on the software architecture and engineering part.

mywaifuismeta 4y ago

The last point is important. In my experience it's mostly about status. RSEs are always seen as inferior to researchers (research scientists) who supposedly come up with the "big ideas" while RSEs merely implement the stuff they're told to do. In reality the line is much blurrier. There can be no innovation and iteration without implementation of ideas and the RSE work is just as important. But unless this view changes, nobody wants to be an RSE.

JetAlone 4y ago
According to a quick search for the case of researchers, and the stereotype of most staff in academia across the board being underpaid, this means academic researchers would have even less incentives/perks/reward, because now they have one less beneficial status differential. Is there some way to make human respect feel like it's not a zero sum game? The world may never know.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > Is there some way to make human respect feel like it's not a zero sum game? Respect is non zero sum but status is definitionally a positional good. If you’re number 1 someone else isn’t. There can be uncertainty about status but ambiguity always collapses eventually. Everyone can be treated with respect but there will be a prestige or dominance hierarchy in any group of humans, subtle as it may be.
amelius 4y ago
Yes, I think RSE is often viewed as a laboratory assistant.
- auxym 4y ago
  Not just viewed, but literally called an assistant in the official title. I am a licensed professional engineer (mechanical) and I work in academia (though my work is varied and does involve some code), my official title (in french) is "Professionnel de recherche", which translates to Research Professional. It is my understanding that in most of the english-speaking world, this position (someone that works for a research lab, who is qualified above the technician level, but not a PI nor a postdoc or student) is called "Research Assistant". I write "Research Engineer" on my résumé/linkedin, because TBH for most people who don't have much experience in academia, "Research Assistant" sounds like an admin assistant (secretary).
lliamander 4y ago
I actually wouldn't mind being lower status than the scientists, so long as my particular expertise was respected and I had a reasonable degree of autonomy within my domain. I did tech support at a university for a bit. I certainly wasn't as high status as the professors, but they mostly respected me and the value I provided (especially when you do things like help them recover that next book they were working on, or whatever).

tonto 4y ago

your premise is that it's not being sold right but maybe you just need more people to give their perspective. I might be considered a research software engineer in the US. In my job, I get paid (well) to develop open source software for data visualization, and I work remotely. I get to maintain existing tools and develop new ones. there is an interesting global community that asks questions daily, and I am constantly learning. I'm not working under the thumb of overbearing people, just delivering results and contributing to new grant goals to continue the funding. these positions are not necessarily common, but are interesting and cool.

FlyingRobot 4y ago
I'll offer another positive perspective. I've worked as a software engineer within the Department of Energy's National Laboratory System for 15 years, and I really enjoy it. Software is a major element of much of the laboratory's work, and in some cases such as mine software is the main product. We enjoy autonomy, lead projects as PIs, and develop mostly open source software. We are also hiring https://nrel.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/NREL/2/refreshFacet/318c8bb6f553100021d223d9780d30be https://nrel.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/NREL/2/refreshFacet/318c8....
- artwr 4y ago
  I will second this. The national labs are definitely some of the places who know what to do with research software engineers and treat them right for the most part. The Computer Systems Engineers and Software Engineers I had the chance to meet at LBNL had a decent amount of autonomy and were very good.
- tsj5 4y ago
  Hi FlyingRobot --- I'd be interested in hearing more about your career path (and openings at NREL). What I've personally heard and experienced aligns with the overwhelmingly negative accounts elsewhere in the thread, which (I feel) have also correctly identified the misalignment of incentives that's responsible. On the other hand, I've never worked in the national lab system. If you're still monitoring this thread, I'd appreciate it if you contacted me at the email in my profile!

ehnto 4y ago

Absolutely, but I will give them the hand that achieving a good software dev experience is extremely hard inside a uni. There is a number of ways that they need to match the industry and are having a tough time doing so due to the institutionalization of all the adjacent processes.

travisgriggs 4y ago

This last point, and replies to this all seem to talk about the research industry. But it has been my experience that this same dynamic of being “less than” exists in any industry that is not primarily software. I am a mechanical engineer by degree, but a software engineer by 30 years of practice. That has allowed me to thrice straddle the divide where I worked on software that was not just software for softwares sake, but rather as a value add addendum/enablement to an institution whose roots were in more real-worldly devices. I also spent time on the other side of the divide working twice for companies whose primary product was software. This “less than” is a very real thing. Software is still a very new thing relatively and it’s taken over the world in just 30 years time. The power dynamics, entrenched in generations haven’t had time to rebalance. I’ve seen this run the other way as well. Where companies that are primarily software, look down on the other disciplines that participate, a necessary evil, but resented. I have yet to find a company/institution where the trifecta of mechanical, electrical, and software is balanced in mutual respect. If one such exists and you are looking for someone that would love to work in that environment, drop me a line. I’m skeptical that there are any. It seems one discipline or the other always triumphs and tramples the others down. On off axis variant of Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy .

NoahKAndrews 4y ago
I sent you an email too, but my employer REV Robotics definitely fits this description in my opinion, especially in regards to the software team's collaboration with the electrical team.
rytill 4y ago
Just curious, have you sampled many robotics companies? I have worked with dozens and it seems like there are some with well-balanced power dynamics between mechanical-electrical-software.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fburnaby 4y ago
I believe this has less to do with software in particular and just generally reflects the typical dynamics of the line/staff distinction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_and_line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_and_line

ElevenPhonons 4y ago

That was my experience as well. The RSE role doesn't seem to fit into their current model. It doesn't work from a career path, nor from a competitive compensation standpoint. I suspect that the housing crisis is also going to push more people out of these positions. If you have a PhD in material science, physics, chemistry, biology, etc... and are reasonably knowledgable in Python (or similar), perhaps spend a year as a postdoc. After that year, seriously consider moving to a tech company.

epicureanideal 4y ago

If RSEs are actually valuable but under-compensated, can someone please disrupt this industry? Would love to see more startup medicine development companies ... Alternatively, would it make sense to provide RSE services as a company, for very high hourly rates, separately from the rest of the university, so status and rules are less of a problem?

kyawzazaw 4y ago
There are a few like these: 1. Benchling 2. Enable Medicine 3. Radix.bio
mike_hearn 4y ago
The reason they're under-compensated is that they aren't valued, unfortunately. A lot of scientists are self taught programmers and don't know what they don't know. The other issue is that if you say you should spend half your departments budget on hiring much better paid software developers, it looks really bad: a. You're implying your colleagues are incompetent. b. You can't use that money for "science". c. It puts in painful relief that the software guys are much better paid than you are, implying that their work is more valuable than yours. But a lot of scientists put up with low pay because they believe their work is really valuable.

Azrael3000 4y ago

There is simply no incentive for science to do proper software engineering. It does not directly produce papers or money, so nobody does it. I've seen it several times in my own career in several countries. PhDs having their own version of the code, incompatible with the one of the Postdoc sitting opposite of them. Each slaving away at their niche project but nobody there to bring it all together. This particular university had really great code and they thought they could sell it. But they did not even use git and when I gave a presentation there about it, I was met with absolute rejection. They don't have an idea on how much effort it takes to maintain a commercial code, unit tests, customer support etc. I'm now working at a company that produces simulation software spun out from university. Fantastic job and we do all of those things mentioned above. But obviously my paper output has been near zero even though we sometimes do cutting edge research. I wish I had a solution to the problem as so much grant money is wasted that produces a paper or two and the corresponding software for that just goes to digital nirvana, it's a real shame.

w0de0 4y ago
Is there any solution to be found through analogy with established fields' relationship between engineering and research disciplines? How, for instance, do physicists share formal models which rocket engineers might apply? Certainly the physicists aren't out developing unit tests for engines which apply their theory, but nor are the engineers exasperated by physicists rejecting their standardized tools (I imagine?).
- Azrael3000 4y ago
  Well from experience the interface is conferences and papers. On conferences you get to know the latest stuff that is going on and the implementation details can be found in papers. What needs to be said though is that reimplementing something from a paper is near impossible. I had to do that a couple of times and I was only fully successful if the paper was accompanied by some open source code as there always are tiny little edge cases or initialization details that won't be covered in the paper.
joshvm 4y ago

kimixa 4y ago

I certainly agree - it was about 10 years ago now, but I did a physics degree and ended up pivoting to computer science. I offered to help a couple of friends in the department with their analysis, and ended up writing the majority of their code in actually analysing their experimental results. In both cases, their supervisor decided not to put my name in the resulting papers, and treated me less than a lab tech. Why would anyone want to do that, when a six-figure tech company salary is just next door?

jltsiren 4y ago

While the academia has a lot of issues, software engineers should also adjust their expectations. First, if you choose to work for a non-profit, you should expect a huge pay cut. That's the way the society works. Or actually it's the opposite. If you work in a for-profit role, the society allows your employer to keep most of the value you create. If you create a lot of value, that gives you the leverage to negotiate much higher compensation than your peers in less profitable roles. Second, like in any business, you should focus on what brings the money in if you want to advance your career. You should be the PI instead of the lab technician. Instead of building the software other people ask, you should become an expert in the field and build the software other people will need in the future. For example, bioinformatics as a whole used to be more of a support role, but today there are many high-profile bioinformatics PIs. Third, many people in the industry fail to realize that you don't really work for your employer in the academia. You work to build a reputation for yourself, which makes you valuable to the employer. If you want to continue working for other people, the upward career path from support roles goes to the administration.

lliamander 4y ago
> Third, many people in the industry fail to realize that you don't really work for your employer in the academia. You work to build a reputation for yourself, which makes you valuable to the employer. That feels like how it works outside of academia as well.
- jltsiren 4y ago
  There is a huge difference: Universities don't do reseach, and they don't care about the research their employees do. If you switch jobs, your old employer doesn't hire anyone to continue your research. Instead, you usually take your project to your new job. In the industry, your employer tends to own the projects you work on.
arvinsim 4y ago
My apologies for not being familiar with acronyms, but what is a PI?

maxwell86 4y ago

> even if you have a PhD many will see you as "less than." Inside academia and outside of it. Inside academia you are not on a tenure track or similar, and will have to put up with a lot. Outside academia, your peers will be making 3x or more than you, working less hours, with less stress, etc. The reason RSE's jobs are hard to fill and often aren't even opened is that they don't make sense. If you are good enough for an RSE job, you will be good enough for research postions at FAANG. Those pay 10x more, so you also need someone willing to not accept that 10x pay, and also willing to work double the hours. RSEs making a reasonable pay for the skills they require make no sense either, because that would put your pay at 2x that of professors, etc.

robbomacrae 4y ago
I'm curious which company pays a RS 10x more than a SE/RSE. I've found its usually SE/RSE's that make a bit more than RS's but I've never seen an RSE comp significantly outweigh an SE unless its in ML/Crypto. On that note I wish levels.fyi had RS and RSE roles...
- epgui 4y ago
  10x is possible, but maybe 3-5x is more realistic (even for non-FAANG).
- adw 4y ago
  10x more than academia. I’m a PhD in mineral physics turned Big Four MLE via startups and I earn about 10x what I would be on if I had stayed on the academic track.
- exdsq 4y ago
  This isn't totally crazy but it's only if you stretch the facts enough. An RSE at Oxford will earn 32k GBP, like a postdoc. In theory, that person could be so good they could get the highest starting salary possible at a Tier 1 paying company like a research engineer at Hudson River Trading, which can be > 320k TC. So it's possible but only for a very very small number of people. 3x-5x is much more likely.